


Dinner and a Show

by KingOuija



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bingeing, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Episode 142, Gen, Unsympathetic!Jon, predatory behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 13:13:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19476625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingOuija/pseuds/KingOuija
Summary: Jon treats himself to a nice dinner out.





	Dinner and a Show

He smokes a cigarette standing over the river as the last of the light disappears from the sky. Lights from the buildings on the opposite bank smear the surface of the water orange and white. Smoke rises from the glowing ash in a wavering line before disappearing into the night sky. His body wavers, too, open to the new sense he's developed lately. He turns his back to the river, twisting one way and the other before choosing a direction.

He tumbles through the crowd, windblown by the new sense, dragging the fingers of his mind lightly across the people he passes.

_Not him not him not her…_

They fall out of his attention as he leaves them behind. He doesn't notice those who shiver despite the mild night and shrug down into their coats. He doesn't notice those who turn as he passes, eyeing his scars or his crumpled suit or the strangely intent expression on his face.

_No, not her, not her, no…_

Each 'no' is a spotlight turned off, a face gone gray and irrelevant and already fading from notice as he chases the story down.

By the time Jon finds him, the need is almost irresistible. He doesn't touch the man's shoulder. It's an excellent way to get hit. Jon follows him for a couple minutes, drinking in every detail down to the loose thread on his sleeve, the hint of stubble on back of his neck. The need is almost--but not quite--irresistible, and thank god for that, because the moment of choice is delicious in itself.

"Hello," he says, and the man turns and is caught in his eyes, "Carson Rand? You've something you need to tell me."

The man tells his story facing Jon on a bus stop bench. Jon thanks him and sends him away with all the warmth he can muster, but while the man had been talking, someone else interesting had passed by. The promise of two in a night has been boiling away in the back of Jon's mind for the last ten minutes, dividing his attention.

The passerby is a young woman, barely older than a girl, out with friends. By now, she’s on the tube, rushing away at 40 km/h. The warm breeze coming up from the underground lifts his hair from his forehead as he descends the stairs. He has no reason to hurry, but his steps are quick and light, nearly dancing.

The force that surrounds him has grown stronger. Most people he passes on his way to the platform ease away from him without any more thought than charged filings. A few turn unconsciously toward him instead. He could know this about himself if he looked, but he doesn't.

When he boards the train and sits in the middle of the car, the other passengers happen to cluster at either end, some choosing to stand instead of sit near him, no one looking in his direction.

He sways with the rocking of the train, feeling her get closer and closer, in a club dancing and drinking, unaware what approaches. He rubs one hand across the other repetitively. His burn scar doesn't pain him these days. Now that he’s fed, it’s ticklish with life. All his scars pulse with a vitality so intense they should be shining. He can see his reflection in the opposite window and they're not, of course. He’s smiling, though, and forces himself to stop.

He traces her steps to the club and waits across the street, leaning in the mouth of an alley, holding a cigarette. He lets each one burn down to his fingers unsmoked, so they'll last longer.

At one thirty the group of girls comes out. He follows a block behind, as the other ones peel away one at a time, to the station, or toward their cars. He continues to follow until only a pair is left, walking slowly and chatting.

He skates around the edges of the orange circles of lamplight in case one looks back, but neither ever does.

He'll think later about what that would have looked like to an outside observer. About--in all honesty--what it _was._ At that future time, he'll want to be dead, so saturated with shame it's like his heart pumps shame instead of blood. 

Knowing he'll pay for it later, he'd better savor it now, hadn't he?

The girl with the story goes into an apartment building, and her friend continues on. Jon doesn't have to estimate the time it takes the girl to cross the lobby to the elevator, ascend to her floor, make her way down the hall, dig through her bag for her keys and fumble them into the lock. This close, standing on her stoop with his finger hovering above the call button by her name, he simply knows the right moment to push.

She tells him her story over the intercom.

He thanks her at the end, though it hadn’t been…right. Filling, yes. It was still information, but it was flavorless. As he wanders in the direction of the tube station, the elation he’d drawn out of Carson Rand earlier and nursed through hours of waiting in the dark slowly trickles away.

The waiting, the tracking, all that jangling anticipation for _that?_ A damp squib?

Should he have tried to lure her downstairs to tell her story face to face? Was that why it had been less than satisfying? _Idiotic._ There’s no lie that could make a girl answer her door to a strange man at two am. He could have tried to compel her to come down, but he doesn’t do that kind of thing.

_Why not? Why not, if you’ve already gone this far? It’s an arbitrary place to draw the line. It makes no practical difference to her._

And it was just as likely a problem with the story itself, anyway. The lack of resolution was why the incident had stuck with the girl; her unease with the loose ends had made it linger. It hadn’t actually terrified her. The girl doesn’t even know her classmate had--

_The girl the girl the girlthegirlthegirl! She has a name, you complete wretch._

Right, Jules Locklear—it’s simply that Jules had been the wrong teller for this story. The classmate, on the other hand, would’ve been absolutely—but unfortunately, the classmate had died.

Jon stops in his tracks. 

The classmate would have been perfect, wouldn’t she? What is it about that thought that makes his guts want to drop out of him?

An all night convenience store is the brightest light for blocks. He drifts over to it like a moth, bumps into the window, and lets himself slide down until he’s seated on the ledge.

Jules’ classmate had died, alone and screaming. He’d known how it happened as Jules told her story (though Jules doesn’t) and he knows _her_ name, too. And he feels terrible about her being dead—sincerely, the thought makes his chest ache--but he feels terrible because—

_Yes?_

\--because it means he’ll never have her story.

_Ah! There it is._

He must look strange, because a young couple passing by have a whispered debate over whether to ask if he needs help.

It’s turning sour. How’s it turning sour so quickly? This isn’t the deal.

He’s stupid to feel so betrayed. There was no betrayal because there was no promise made to him. His god had never outlined the deal explicitly and Jon has certainly never tried to enforce terms. All the same, he has become accustomed to how things work. 

Do this thing—this thing that really is, let’s be honest, _evil_ —be rewarded with a pleasure that blots out any consideration of how evil it is. For quite a while, anyway. But here he is, barely twenty minutes from taking Jules’ story, and he can feel the misery threatening to press in already.

He leaps to his feet, heart pounding. He has to get back to the Archives. He’s an archivist, after all. There’s a purpose for all this, right? A legitimate purpose. He’ll write down Jules Locklear’s story. Carson Rand’s, too. Invent metadata to cover his tracks. No way he can assign follow-up to the others under the circumstances, but—

_We’re long past assigning follow-up._

\--but he can formalize the stories, at least. Cram them into the template of “work.” Maybe that will make it better. He’s been telling himself for a while that he’ll do it, but hasn’t yet. Christ, there’ve been (don’t think about the number) too many already! It’s fine, though. Fine. It’s not as though the stories are going anywhere. They’re still siloed safely inside him.

It’s late enough his train car home is empty. He avoids his own eyes in the opposite window.

The worst part is that he still feels incredible physically. Head clear, vision sharp, joints moving with liquid ease, every nerve serene but ready to respond. This isn’t normal. The misery’s not supposed to be able to get at him when he’s not hungry and exhausted.

_Of course you’ll feel miserable if you spend all night doing miserable things to people. That’s the only “deal” there ever really was, you hopeless…_

He can’t keep doing this. Obviously! That’s been obvious from the start. He can’t, full stop, but he especially can’t if it doesn’t even _work_ anymore.

No. It’s not just that he can’t. He _will not_ do this. Never again.

He’ll work all day the way he used to. Twice a day or more, he’ll coax his stomach into accepting real food. Milk-soaked bread is a place to start, like his grandmother had given him when he was sick with stomach flu and couldn’t keep anything else down. 

_Of course. Wet bread! That’s what you’re missing, Jon. Genius._

He’ll keep trying with Basira and Melanie. And if he doesn’t get anywhere, there’s still Daisy, who prefers being watched to being alone. Maybe she’ll even underst—

No, she doesn’t have to understand. He doesn’t have to tell her, because it’s already in the past. He’s done.

There are more than enough statements to read. Delegate the live ones. He can maintain on the inert written ones. He will maintain on that. It won’t even be difficult--he can read one a day for years.

He’ll sleep when he should.

And--it’s important to reiterate--he will never _ever_ do this again.

Jon is within sight of the Institute when the sense beckons him for the third time. His indecision lasts only as long as it takes him to swing his leg forward into his next step.

_Oh no, Jon, what happened?_

The thing is…

_The thing is…?_

It’s that—well…really, it’s that Jon’s never been a happy person. Aside from a few thin, watery pleasures-- _this is a nice glass of wine, oh they may have found methane on Mars, got the final word with that prick_ \--life before the Archive hadn't been much of anything. He didn’t seem to have fun like other people did. He wasn’t made for joy. He used to feel rather superior about it sometimes. A difference has to be treasured as a mark of distinction, or…

He’d sneered at Tim for the way he’d slouch in forty minutes late Monday mornings, wearing Friday’s clothes. Grumbled about the money the Institute wasted on the occasional karaoke night or Qigong seminar. Made fun of Georgie’s silly actor friends. He’d pretended to be superior when, all along, he’d been the deficient one. He’d only been good for so many years because it was the only way he could be.

He could still be good now—he remembers how. Keep humbly soaking up Basira’s scorn, force down wet bread or those dry canteen sandwiches or dry statements or whatever--it all tastes the same, chain himself to his bedframe like Kant…

Or he could have some fucking fun for once in his life.

The trail ends in a pile of broken cardboard boxes in the doorway of a boarded-up shop. An old man is sleeping in the sheltered entryway, balled up under layers of limp blankets. It's not a cold night. Jon knows the blankets aren't for warmth, but the illusion of security. Nightmares have found him just the same. Jon crouches, watching the man’s eyes flicker under delicate lids. The terror is so thick around his sleeping body it's almost visible.

Almost visible isn't visible enough.

The man gasps as Jon shakes him awake, and a sloppy punch catches him on the nose just hard enough to make him fall backwards onto his hands, eyes watering. Jon laughs as a stream of blood falls over his lip, feeling the man’s fear wash over him. God, this old fellow’s so wonderfully responsive! No wonder they’d--

"It's alright! You're fine, sir," Jon assures him, recentering his weight above his heels, "Don't worry. You were having a bad dream. You're safe now."

The man's head turns one way and the other, taking in his mundane surroundings. Jon wipes his lip clean on his sleeve, his nose already mended. He can feel the man's directionless unease. He's still frightened, but there's nothing obvious to be frightened of any longer. His fear and confusion are starting to feed each other, skinny chest heaving beneath his tee shirt.

"Don’t," Jon interrupts, one hand extended. "Don’t work yourself up. Why don't you tell me about it? Tell me everything."

The old man tells him everything. Jon barely has to push. It must satisfy them in some way, considering how eagerly most of them give it up. On some level, they must need it.

It's the Desolation, as unimaginative as it is grim. Jon doesn’t fool himself any of the information the man conveys will have any practical value. First the man's reputation had been ruined. Pets disappeared. His business collapsed. Wife left him. His son died in front of him on his visitation day. 

Jon doesn’t have to ask for elaboration on that point. The man provides, trembling, face melting from terror to grief to guilt to terror. He gives Jon everything he could want without prompting. It’s fortunate Jon doesn’t have to ask because he physically couldn’t. He’s floating in a stupor of bliss, something dark and electric flowing between his blown-out pupils and the old man’s. If some hooligan knocked him to the ground right now, it’d be half a minute before he could manage a groan.

The Desolation wasn’t done with the man, of course. The sister whose couch he slept on died in a house fire when he fell asleep drunk with a lit cigarette in his hand. The cigarette was his brand. He hadn't smoked in twenty years, but it didn't matter.

Some credit is due for that detail. It snakes back through the man’s recollection of every other tragedy and whispers _was it you? Are you sure? What else don’t you remember? When else did you have a drink too many?_ It's a richer fear added to the other notes.

Sweat makes the old man’s face gleam in the lamplight. He’s beautiful, the fine lines on his face running into the deep ones, leading to his eyes. He’s not as old as he looks. Every crease in his face has been pressed into it _hard._ His eyes glitter like an animal’s, shivering back and forth as they follow the track of the memory. Sweat is rising on Jon’s face as well. They breathe in unison. Tremble together.

Somehow, there’s even more. Whichever of them had marked the man has an unusual patience and delicacy of touch to have terrorized him for so long without damaging his capacity to feel. When the old man had given up on ever having a home again, it’d been a bleak joy. Having nothing left to lose, he’d thought it must be over. But ever so often, he'll wake up with the edge of his blanket or sleeve singed and know they've found him, and he'll be confronted again by the choice to kill himself or move along.

The old man stops, dazed. For a long moment, all Jon can do is breathe. His skin’s so sensitized, the faint stir of his own breath over his lips has him on the edge of a moan. He swallows.

"Thank you."

The huskiness of it makes the man's fear spike again. Jon sways.

"Too much," Jon pleads, "You can’t--it's enough already. Here." He reaches into his pocket with trembling fingers. 

He’d decided the moment he'd seen the sleeping man he'd open his wallet for him at the end. Give him a fiver along with his heartfelt thanks. Instead, he doesn't hold back a single bill. The man’s fear evaporates at the sight, mouth falling open. Jon's fingers slide against the man's clammy palm as he hands over the money, drinking in his spent adrenaline. The texture of Jon's burn-crumpled skin engenders a fresh wave of queasy dread in the old man. Jon’s mind simply gives up containing it all, gushing over into the slippery gaps between his organs.

The old man falls back asleep after that, his head dropping gradually to the cardboard-covered ground, because Jon suggests it. The wrinkled face is peaceful for the moment. Once Jon collects himself, he peels off his blazer--too hot and constraining now--balls it, and eases it beneath the man's head.

He has to lean against the wall to struggle to his feet, not because he's been crouching on the hard concrete for close to an hour, but because he's so stuffed. It's knocked his center of gravity out of place, and he's reeling with it as he wanders home.

With his blazer gone, it’s clear it’s not his clothing that feels too tight—it’s his skin. He’s bulging with information, stretched balloon-thin. It shifts inside him with every step, and the sensation is so distinct it’s confusing not to be able to see it when he looks down at himself. The feeling is definitely not comfortable, but something else he’s altogether helpless to describe. He thinks he understands why people drink until they erupt or get reamed bloody in public toilets, if what they feel is a fraction of this.

There's an unavoidable click when he keys in the code at the Institute's front door. He knows from experience it can be heard all the way down in the Archives in the afterhours quiet. He can also feel that Daisy, Basira, and Melanie are safely asleep. Martin is gone for the night, or simply absent the same way he's always absent lately.

He eases the heavy glass door silently closed behind him. The marble floor throws echoes that make the lightest steps sound loud and officious. It’s challenging, sneaking across that floor laden with so much lovely information. It's a predicament on par with having four armloads of groceries in two arms and realizing you've just dropped the key to your flat or having to shuffle across ice holding a wedding cake. Everything’s right on the edge of going spectacularly to shit, and it's a little bit funny.

If they saw him, they'd know immediately. His guilt is in the smile he can't suppress, flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes. And if they knew, they'd be bound to confront him, good and brave as they are. They'd tell him all the things he knows he'll be telling himself later, anyway. It's almost sobering imagining the judgment of those good, loved, human eyes piling on top of his own judgment and crushing him later, when he's low and hungry.

But if someone confronted him _now_ \--Martin or, let's be honest, it would be Basira—he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from laughing in their face.


End file.
